"What must I do,' I said, 'my soul to free?'-
'Do nothing, man; it will be done for thee.'
'But must I not, my reverend guide, believe?'-
'If thou art call'd, thou wilt the faith receive.'
'But I repent not.'-Angry he replied,

'If thou art call'd, though needest nought beside:
Attend on us, and if 'tis Heaven's decree,
The call will come,-if not, ah! woe for thee.'
"There then I waited, ever on the watch,
A spark of hope, a ray of light to catch;
His words fell softly like the flakes of snow,
But I could never find my heart o'erflow:
He cried aloud, till in the flock began

The sigh, the tear, as caught from man to man;
They wept and they rejoiced, and there was I
Hard as a flint, and as the desert dry:
To me no tokens of the call would come,
I felt my sentence, and received my doom;
But I complain'd-Let thy repinings cease,
Oh! man of sin, for they thy guilt increase;
It bloweth where it listeth ;-die in peace.'
-In peace, and perish?' I replied; 'impart
Some better comfort to a burthen'd heart.'
Alas! the priest return'd, can I direct
The heavenly call?-Do I proclaim th' elect?
Raise not thy voice against th' Eternal will,
But take thy part with sinners, and be still.'

"Alas, for me! no more the times of peace Are mine on earth-in death my pains may cease. "Foes to my soul! ye young seducers, know What serious ills from your amusements flow; Opinions you with so much ease profess, O'erwhelm the simple and their minds oppress: Let such be happy, nor with reasons strong,

That make them wretched, prove their notions wrong;

Let them proceed in that they deem the way,

Fast when they will, and at their pleasure pray:
Yes, I have pity for my brethren's lot,

And so had Dives, but it help'd him not:
And is it thus ?—I'm full of doubts:-Adieu!
Perhaps his reverence is mistaken too."*

*It has been a subject of greater vexation to me than such trifle ought to be, that I could not, without destroying all appearance of arrangement, separate these melancholy narratives, and place the fallen Clerk in Office at a greater distance from the Clerk of the Parish, especially as they resembled each other in several particulars; both being tempted, seduced, and wretched. Yet are there, I conceive, considerable marks of distinction: their guilt is of different kind; nor would either have committed the offence of the other. The Clerk of the Parish could break the commandment, but he could not have been induced to have disowned an article of that creed for which he had so bravely contended, and on which he fully relied; and the upright mind of the Clerk in Office would have secured him from being guilty of wrong and robbery, though his weak and vacillating intellect could not preserve him from infidelity and profaneness. Their melancholy is nearly alike, but not its consequences. Jachin retained his belief, and though he hated life, he could never be induced to quit it voluntarily; but Abel was driven to terminate his misery in a way which the unfixedness of his religious opinions rather accelerated than re I am, therefore, not without hope, that the more observant of my readers will perceive many marks of discrimination in these chara, ters.

tarded.

LETTER XXII.

THE POOR OF THE BOROUGH.

Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd
Came to my tent, and every one did threat-

SHAKSPEARE. Richard III.

The time hath been,

That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end: but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools.

Macbeth.

PETER GRIMES.

The Father of Peter a Fisherman-Peter's early Conduct-His Grief for the old Man-He takes an Apprentice-The Boy's Suffering and Fate-A second Boy! how he died-Peter acquitted-A third Apprentice-A Voyage by Sea: the Boy does not return-Evil Report on Peter: he is tried and threatened-Lives alone-His melancholy and incipient Madness-Is observed and visited-He escapes and is taken: is lodged in a parish-house: Women attend and watch him-He speaks in a Delirium; grows more collected-His Account of his Feelings and visionary Terrors previous to his Death.

OLD Peter Grimes made fishing his employ,
His wife he cabin'd with him and his boy,
And seem'd that life laborious to enjoy:
To town came quiet Peter with his fish,
And had of all a civil word and wish.
He left his trade upon the Sabbath-day,
And took young Peter in his hand to pray:
But soon the stubborn boy from care broke loose,
At first refused, then added his abuse:
His father's love he scorn'd, his power defied,
But being drunk, wept sorely when he died.

Yes! then he wept, and to his mind there came
Much of his conduct, and he felt the shame,-
How he had oft the good old man reviled,
And never paid the duty of a child;
How, when the father in his Bible read,
He in contempt and anger left the shed:
"It is the word of life," the parent cried;
"This is the life itself," the boy replied.
And while old Peter in amazement stood,
Gave the hot spirits to his boiling blood:-
How he, with oath and furious speech, began
To prove his freedom and assert the man;
And when the parent check'd his impious rage,
How he had cursed the tyranny of age.-

Nay, once had dealt the sacrilegious blow
On his bare head, and laid his parent low;
The father groan'd-" If thou art old," said he,
"And hast a son-thou wilt remember me:

Thy mother left me in a happy time,

Thou kill'dst not her-heav'n spares the double crime."
On an inn-settle, in his maudlin grief,

This he revolved, and drank for his relief.

Now lived the youth in freedom, but debarr'd
From constant pleasures, and he thought it hard;
Hard that he could not every wish obey,
But must awhile relinquish ale and play;
Hard! that he could not to his cards attend,
But must acquire the money he would spend.
With greedy eye he look'd on all he saw,
He knew not justice, and he laugh'd at law;
On all he mark'd, he stretch'd his ready hand;
He fish'd by water and he filch'd by land:
Oft in the night has Peter dropp'd his oar,
Fled from his boat, and sought for prey on shore;
Oft up the hedge-row glided, on his back
Bearing the orchard's produce in a sack,

Or farm-yard load, tugg'd fiercely from the stack;
And as these wrongs to greater numbers rose,
The more he look'd on all men as his foes.

He built a mud-wall'd hovel, where he kept
His various wealth, and there he oft-times slept;
But no success could please his cruel soul,
He wish'd for one to trouble and control;
He wanted some obedient boy to stand
And bear the blow of his outrageous hand;
And hoped to find in some propitious hour
A feeling creature subject to his power.

Peter had heard there were in London then,-
Still have they being!-workhouse-clearing men,
Who, undisturb'd by feelings just or kind,
Would parish-boys to needy tradesmen bind:
They in their want a trifling sum would take,
And toiling slaves of piteous orphans make.
Such Peter sought, and when a lad was found,
The sum was dealt him, and the slave was bound.
Some few in town observed in Peter's trap
A boy, with jacket blue and woollen cap;
But none inquired how Peter used the rope,
Or what the bruise that made the stripling stoop;
None could the ridges on his back behold,
None sought him shiv'ring in the winter's cold;
None put the question,-" Peter, dost thou give
The boy his food?-What, man! the lad must live:
Consider, Peter, let the child have bread,

He'll serve the better if he's stroked and fed."

None reason'd thus-and some, on hearing cries,

Said calmly," Grimes is at his exercise."

Pinn'd, beaten, cold, pinch'd, threaten'd, and abused

His efforts punish'd and his food refused,-
Awake tormented, soon aroused from sleep,-
Struck if he wept, and yet compell'd to weep,
The trembling boy dropp'd down and strove to pray,
Received a blow, and trembling turn'd away,
Or sobb'd and hid his piteous face; while he,
The savage master, grinn'd in horrid glee:
He'd now the power he ever loved to show,
A feeling being subject to his blow.

Thus lived the lad, in hunger, peril, pain,
His tears despised, his supplications vain:
Compell'd by fear to lie, by need to steal,
His bed uneasy and unbless'd his meal,
For three sad years the boy his tortures bore,
And then his pains and trials were no more.

"How died he, Peter ?" when the people said, He growl'd-" I found him lifeless in his bed;"

Then tried for softer tone, and sigh'd, " Poor Sam is dead'
Yet murmurs were there, and some questions ask'd-
How he was fed, how punish'd, and how task'd?

Much they suspected, but they little proved,
And Peter pass'd untroubled and unmoved.
Another boy with equal ease was found,
The money granted, and the victim bound;
And what his fate ?-One night it chanced he fell
From the boat's mast and perish'd in her well,
Where fish were living kept, and where the boy
(So reason'd men) could not himself destroy :-
"Yes! so it was," said Peter, " in his play,
(For he was idle both by night and day,)
He climb'd the main-mast and then fell below;"
Then show'd his corpse, and pointed to the blow.
"What said the jury?"-they were long in doubt,
But sturdy Peter faced the matter out:

So they dismissed him, saying at the time,

66

Keep fast your hatchway when you've boys who climb.' This hit the conscience, and he colour'd more

Than for the closest questions put before.

Thus all his fears the verdict set aside,

And at the slave-shop Peter still applied.

Then came a boy, of manners soft and mild,-
Our seamen's wives with grief beheld the child;
All thought (the poor themselves) that he was one
Of gentle blood, some noble sinner's son,
Who had, belike, deceived some humble maid,
Whom he had first seduced and then betray'd:-
However this, he seem'd a gracious lad,
In grief submissive, and with patience sad.

Passive he labour'd, till his slender frame
Bent with his loads, and he at length was lame:
Strange that a frame so weak could bear so long
The grossest insult and the foulest wrong;
But there were causes-in the town they gave
Fire, food, and comfort, to the gentle slave;

And though stern Peter, with a cruel hand,
And knotted rope, enforced the rude command,
Yet he consider'd what he'd lately felt,
And his vile blows with selfish pity dealt.

One day such draughts the cruel fisher made,
He could not vend them in his borough-trade,
But sail'd for London-mart: the boy was ill,
But ever humbled to his master's will;
And on the river, where they smoothly sail'd,
He strove with terror and awhile prevail'd;
But new to danger on the angry sea,
He clung affrighten'd to his master's knee:
The boat grew leaky and the wind was strong,
Rough was the passage and the time was long;
His liquor fail'd, and Peter's wrath arose,—
No more is known-the rest we must suppose,
Or learn of Peter:-Peter says, he " spied
The stripling's danger and for harbour tried;
Meantime the fish, and then th' apprentice died."
The pitying women raised a clamour round,
And weeping said, "Thou hast thy 'prentice drown'd."
Now the stern man was summon'd to the hall,
To tell his tale before the burghers all:
He gave th' account; profess'd the lad he loved,
And kept his brazen features all unmoved.

The mayor himself with tone severe replied,-
"Henceforth with thee shall never boy abide;
Hire thee a freeman, whom thou durst not beat,
But who, in thy despite, will sleep and eat:
Free thou art now!-again shouldst thou appear,
Thou'lt find thy sentence, like thy soul, severe."
Alas! for Peter not a helping hand,

So was he hated, could he now command;
Alone he row'd his boat, alone he cast
His nets beside, or made his anchor fast:
To hold a rope or hear a curse was none,—

He toil'd and rail'd; he groan'd and swore alone.
Thus by himself compell'd to live each day,

To wait for certain hours the tide's delay;
At the same time the same dull views to see,
The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree;
The water only, when the tides were high,
When low, the mud half cover'd and half-dry;
The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks,
And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks;
Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,
As the tide rolls by the impeded boat.

When tides were neap, and, in the sultry day, Through the tall bounding mud-banks made their way, Which on each side rose swelling, and below

The dark warm flood ran silently and slow;

There anchoring, Peter chose from man to hide,
There hang his head, and view the lazy tide
In its hot slimy channel slowly glide;